Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
September 11, 2001 More than six years after being retired from service by the New York City Fire Department (FDNY), the fireboat John J. Harvey returned to action when she assisted in the large-scale relief and evacuation efforts at the World Trade Center following the deadly terrorist attacks there. Launched in 1931, the Harvey was named... Continue Reading →
September 9, 1876 In the Great Lakes region of Ohio, a lifesaving station to rescue shipwrecked mariners and passengers was officially opened in the village of Marblehead at the tip of the Marblehead Peninsula. (This peninsula divides Lake Erie proper from Sandusky Bay.) The genesis of this station and others throughout the nation could be traced... Continue Reading →
September 6, 1919 The U.S. Army’s Cross-Country Motor Transport Train arrived in San Francisco, completing a transcontinental trip of 3,251 miles (5,232 kilometers) that began on July 7 in Washington, D.C. On the evening of September 6, convoy commander Lieutenant Charles W. McClure formally confirmed the end of this historic journey in a telegram that... Continue Reading →
September 3, 1930 Nearly eight decades after first coming into existence, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western (DL&W) Railroad – covering about 400 miles (643.7 kilometers) between Hoboken, New Jersey, and Buffalo, New York – introduced electric suburban trains along its line. These trains were inaugurated for use within New Jersey between Hoboken and the communities... Continue Reading →
August 30, 1925 Two officials of the American Automobile Association (AAA) headed out of Washington, D.C., for an ambitious transcontinental motor vehicle trip to California. AAA President Thomas P. Henry and Ernest N. Smith, general manager of that organization, undertook that long drive to participate in the festivities commemorating California’s 75th anniversary as a state. Both... Continue Reading →
August 26, 1919 The U.S. Army’s Cross-Country Motor Transport Train, having crossed over into Nevada from Utah just a couple of days earlier, spent much of August 26 continuing to slog through what would be the toughest section of the entire transcontinental journey. “U.S. TRUCK TRAIN MIRED IN NEVADA DESERT,” proclaimed a headline in the... Continue Reading →
August 23, 1904 Harry D. Weed of Canastota, New York, was issued U.S. Patent Number 768,495 for his “Grip-Tread for Pneumatic Tires,” an innovation designed to help make driving safer in inclement winter weather or similarly adverse muddy road conditions. According to one of his great-grandsons, Weed came up with the idea for creating tire chains... Continue Reading →
August 19, 1919 Just a couple of days after crossing from Wyoming to Utah, the U.S. Army’s Cross-Country Motor Transport Train took eight-and-a-half hours to travel 73 miles (117.5 kilometers) from its overnight stay at Glenwood Park in Ogden to Salt Lake City. The imminent stopover of the convoy in Utah’s state capital was awaited... Continue Reading →
August 13, 1959 In New York City, construction began on a major bridge that would provide an urgently sought-after vehicular connection between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island at a tidal strait in New York Harbor known as The Narrows. This planned structure was named after Giovanni de Verrazzano, an Italian explorer who in... Continue Reading →
August 12, 1919 The U.S. Army’s Cross-Country Motor Transport Train, four days after arriving in Wyoming and making its first stop in the capital city of Cheyenne, continued to snake its way through the south-central part of the Equality State. After camping for the night on a hillside south of the town of Medicine Bow,... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 